ReFocus: The Films of François Ozon

by Loïc Bourdeau (Editor)

Overview

A queer auteur who plays with generic conventions, François Ozon is one of France’s most prolific and best known international directors, who has built a filmography that not only engages in the representation of non—normative sexualities, kinship and violence, but also makes room for social outcasts and marginalised communities. This edited collection brings together renowned and emergent scholars to investigate further questions of minority, queerness, (queer) intertextuality and gender representations, as well as secrecy, transgression and intimacy in his films, offering the most up—to—date study of François Ozon’s cinema.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781474479929
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	05/22/2023
Series:	ReFocus: The International Directors Series
Pages:	232
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x (d)

About the Author

Loïc Bourdeau is a scholar of French Studies and the Medical Humanities in the School of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures at Maynooth University, formerly Louisiana Board of Regents Associate Professor of Francophone Studies at UL Lafayette. He has published extensively on contemporary cultural productions by marginalised voices in France and Québec. In addition to several chapters and articles, he has edited or co—edited four volumes, including Horrible Mothers. Representations across Francophone North America (2019), ReFocus: The Films of François Ozon (2021), and Revisiting HIV/AIDS in French Culture: Raw Matters (2022). He has edited special issues of the Australian Journal of French Studies (2020), Nouvelles Études Francophones (2022), and a special issue of Nottingham French Studies on ‘The Twenty—first Century Social Novel in French’ (2024).

Table of Contents

Introduction: In the beginning was the word — Loïc Bourdeau

Part One: The Politics of Form

1. Queer Tyranny and Intertextuality in Gouttes d’eau sur pierres brûlantes: François Ozon Pays Homage to Master Fassbinder — Amy Bertram

2. François Ozon’s Sitcom and Politics of Form — Tamara Tasevska

3. Queering the Trenches: Homoerotic Overtones in Frantz — Helena Duffy

4. The Crystal—Image and Queer Ambiguity in Sous le sable — Peadar Kearney

5. French Ozon/Global Ozon: French Specificity and Globalisation in Jeune & jolie — Felicity Chaplin

Part Two: (In)Formal Politics

6. ‘The Scent of a Middle—class Woman’: Desire, family and the adolescent imagination in François Ozon’s Dans la maison — Jamie Steele

7. Bringing Up Baby in the Twenty—First Century: Le Refuge and the Ozonian Family — Thibaut Schilt

8. Transing Dynamics: Ozon’s Une nouvelle amie — Todd W. Reeser

9. Sex Wars in Potiche: Womanhood Then and Now — Loïc Bourdeau

10. Female Creativity, Selfishness and Monstrosity in François Ozon’s Angel — Fiona Handyside

11. From Faits Divers to Grandes Affaires: Giving Voice to Sexual—Abuse Survivors in Grâce à Dieu — Levilson C. Reis

Editorial Reviews

By now a familiar fixture in contemporary French cinema, the prolific auteur François Ozon seems to have grown in stature over the last decade. Loïc Bourdeau has assembled an exciting and eclectic collection of original essays that combines a welcome return to the perverse queerness of the filmmaker’s early work with a full examination of the later more ‘mature’ Ozon including a timely focus on the sexual politics of abuse. This is an impressively wide—ranging collection that will no doubt contribute to a fuller critical understanding of one of 21st century cinema’s important directors.

Sorbonne Nouvelle University Nick Rees—Roberts

From experimentations with genre and intertextuality to new visions of queerness and relationships, ReFocus: The Films of François Ozon captures the unique spirit of one of France’s most idiosyncratic directors. Loïc Bourdeau’s edited volume is intellectual yet creative, cohesive yet wide—ranging, inventive yet steeped in a rich cultural tradition. Much like François Ozon’s cinema itself.

The Australian National University Gemma King

Bourdeau’s edited collection of essays will serve as a valuable reference to cinephiles eager to further discover Ozon’s work and its place in the larger context of French cinema. In addition, the book’s focus on several issues animating contemporary French society—identity politics, education, kinship relations, and transgender rights—will satisfy the curiosity of readers intent on keeping abreast of French politics and their representation in media.

French Review - Peter Tarjanyi

By now a familiar fixture in contemporary French cinema, the prolific auteur François Ozon seems to have grown in stature over the last decade. Loïc Bourdeau has assembled an exciting and eclectic collection of original essays that combines a welcome return to the perverse queerness of the filmmaker’s early work with a full examination of the later more ‘mature’ Ozon including a timely focus on the sexual politics of abuse. This is an impressively wide-ranging collection that will no doubt contribute to a fuller critical understanding of one of 21st century cinema’s important directors.

Sorbonne Nouvelle University Nick Rees-Roberts